“Gems from Our Kids”

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The Christmas shopping season is approaching. I know that because the stores already have displays in place heralding the coming holiday…or encouraging shoppers to buy, Buy, BUY! And I know it’s coming because we’ve been getting our Christmas mail order catalogs by the fistful each week. My little ones (and even a few of the big ones) will sit on the couch and dream together through the latest Danish plastic building block magazine or Vision Forum catalog. Repeatedly we hear, “I want this, and this, and that…oh, and one of those!” We probably couldn’t afford their wish lists even if we didn’t have to pay taxes. In any event, it was one of those wish-list moments that gave us another gem of a memory from my three-year-old son, Jedidiah. He was showing Daddy all the swords, the crossbow, and the grappling hook in the Vision Forum catalog and informed his father that he wanted one of each of them. Kris replied, “Let’s say you could only have one thing from this catalog, what would it be?” Jed was undeterred, “But I want all of them. I’ll even buy them with my own money.” Then, without skipping a beat, “Dad, can I borrow some money?”

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